In order for robots to be useful in some of the more complex tasks out there, they will need a lot of “skills”. One of these is fine-finger skills. The ability to grasp is good – the ability to push buttons in a particular sequence, pick up small objects and manipulate them is better. Another [...]

Harvard has just announced the receipt of a grant that will allow them to develop and build robots based off of bees. From the press release:
A multidisciplinary team of computer scientists, engineers, and biologists at Harvard received a $10 million National Science Foundation (NSF) Expeditions in Computing grant to fund the development of small-scale mobile [...]

I think this is a rescue robot. I think. What confuses me is that it not only looks like a tree grinder, the video is labeled as a “Human Body Shredding Machine” – with a description of “machine can shred a human body”
Uh, really? Right there on the street? How … awesome.
So, without further ado, [...]

MacGregor Campbell over at New Scientist reports on how groups of scientists are working on a universal robot operating system (called ROS).
This system, they say, would allow for far greater advances in robotic technology, because rather than starting from scratch every time someone goes to construct a robot, the basic controlling code will exist – [...]

In honor of Gregory Clark’s recent article on robots and jobs,  which is something we have also written about here, the Daily Show has put together their top ten clips about robots.
The first clip even has our favorite futurist, Ray Kurzweil (otherwise, that clip is … not the best).
So, without further ado, go check out [...]

Over at Atlantic Monthly Mike Konczal is bringing up a question we have brought up before as well – are robots eliminating an entire class of worker (unskilled labor)?
I highly recommend reading this article. He brings up excellent points about why we are not perceiving this as a threat (robots are dull, not sexy/visibly dangerous [...]

Several years ago I attended the North American International Auto Show in Detroit, Michigan. One of the many exhibitions there was one put on by the UAW and GM – it was very, very cool. Right on the show floor they would assemble a car from start to finish. During this exhibition they showed how [...]

This awesome video shows how scientists are using animals as the basis for robot designs. As it is explained in the videos, this helps both scientists and biologists as they learn more about what makes these animals move and how they work.

Perhaps the most bizare item in the video is the robot cockroach that even [...]

Over at Let’s Make Robots, they have a neat piece up about an Arduino powered robot that can metal detect for you! The TB-007 sports a simple design, hacked hand-held metal detector and a mounted cam so your coin-collecting uncle can stay in the camper while the robot roams for beach loot.

The demo videos are [...]

This incredible article in Signal Online talks about how there are research teams working on programmable matter.
This matter could be programmed to flow under doors and into other tight openings, then assemble itself into a needed object. For example, one team is working on a wrench that could disassemble itself and then reassemble into a [...]